Trip Report: Golden Trout Creek

Photo by nativetroutaddict

Three individuals headed out on the Inyo National Forest side of the Golden Trout Wilderness. They had not been backpacking in years and here is what they had to report.

My wife and I recently moved back to CA after living in western Kenya for a couple years consulting for an NGO engaging economic development in East Africa. We’d not yet spent a night in the backcountry so we decided to head to the Golden Trout Wilderness with a good friend for the 4th of July.

Photo by nativetroutaddict

This familiar site always reminds me of my childhood summer vacations around Bishop and Mammoth. We spent the night at Horseshoe Meadows and woke up bright and early to begin our 10+ mile hike back to the creek of gold. May I remind you that my feet are in zero conditioning. We had no clue how we’d hold up to the pack weight but thankfully after trudging over mile after mile of the sandy trail we hit the mother load.

We spent our first full day relaxing and fishing around our campsite. Our feet needed the rest and my hand needed to be reminded of how to use a fly rod on small skinny water. But like they say, it’s just like riding a bike. The next morning we decided to explore Volcano Meadow but were saddened to see that it was bone dry. There is water flowing in from the streamers but it immediately vanishes underground upon reaching the meadow…only to emerge again as a marsh only meters before leaving the meadow. Hopefully this system can return to former glory with a few sustained wet seasons.

Just for good measure we fished a bit of the South Fork of the Kern’s headwaters because after passing plunge pool after plunge pool I could not resist.

All in all, it was a great trip. I’ll write more later. Next week I head back to Kenya for a few weeks and will not hit the water again until September or so. I’ll try to post some past trip reports in the interim.